The long road home for lost relics

Over the past two decades, China has joined international conventions related to combating trafficking in cultural relics and promoting the return of artifacts. China has also signed bilateral agreements and memorandums of understanding with more than 20 countries, including Italy, the United States and the United Kingdom, to jointly curb smuggling, track the illicit trade in cultural relics and streamline repatriation procedures.

James Ratcliffe, general counsel and director of recoveries at the Art Loss Register, a private database of stolen art, antiques and collectibles, said that their database receives more than 500,000 queries each year, many of them from art dealers conducting provenance background checks before selling artworks.

"As the Asia-Pacific region's economy grows more prosperous, I think there may be more and more cases of cultural relic return in the future. The return of cultural property has become an international issue. It requires closer international cooperation, database sharing, and the formulation and use of common global regulations," he said.

The return of cultural relics is not the end, but a new starting point for cultural heritage cooperation. The National Cultural Heritage Administration introduced the case of Sino-US cooperation in returning the second and third volumes of the Zidanku Warring States Period (475-221 BC) silk manuscripts from Changsha in Hunan province.